Monday, April 28, 2008

R10 Relief

Once again they took a 2-1 lead in the second but this time FC Gifu managed to hold on for 3-1 win under sunny skies in Mito.

It was a game in which both teams never really got out of second gear. I guess after both playing in goal-fests on saturday there was bound to be a bit of tiredness in both camps.

FC Gifu got the game going in the 26th minute when local legend Yasuyuki Moriyama collected a beautiful pass from Katagiri Atsushi. In the 40th minute though, Mito struck back when FW Tomoyuki Arata danced around his defender to level the scores 1-1 at half-time.

In the second half the game was there for the taking for boths teams but neither team really looked like scoring until in the 76th minute when Masato Katayama found himself unmarked to head in the goal for a 2-1 lead. From then it was all defense for Gifu as they withheld the Mito attack but in the 89th minute Katayama was again on hand to knock in yet another goal after a counter-attacking out-break from Atsushi Katagiri for the 3-1 win.

Had Mito woken from their slumber and played like they did against Sendai there is the feeling that they could have well won, or at least drawn this game but it was Gifu in the end that proved to be on the ball a bit more and therefore they came away with the three points.

3 comments:

Congrats with a nice win :-) I bet Vendo from the Mito blog is not happy now ;) I must say Gifu continue to impress, and I wouldn't have thought they would be able to beat Mito away.Based on the performances so far, Gifu seems strong enough for a top-half finish, but will they run out of steam eventually? or just keep going, winning their 5th promotion in 5 seasons? :P

Vendo, you've probably got a better chance of beating us at home in Gifu anyway!

Kaare, well, famous last words... after seeing us win only one of our last five games we'll be lucky to keep a place in the middle of the competition...Golden Week competition is enough to sort out the big boys from the rest and unfortunately I think we've been pushed down well and truly into the later category..